1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to an apparatus management system.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are known systems (hereafter called apparatus management systems) that obtain apparatus information from managed apparatuses (hereafter called communication apparatuses) such as printers and multifunction peripherals having communication functions and thereby manage the communication apparatuses.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-187186 discloses a system where a central controller for apparatus management periodically obtains the numbers of printed pages (i.e., apparatus information) via data communication apparatuses from multiple image forming apparatuses (communication apparatuses) to be managed.
However, with related-art methods and configurations, the communication load and the processing time for obtaining apparatus information from communication apparatuses to be managed may increase drastically as the scale of the apparatus management system increases.
With globalization of companies, there is a demand for an apparatus management system that can centrally manage thousands or tens of thousands of communication apparatuses. In such a large-scale apparatus management system, it is preferable, for example, to standardize information to be obtained from communication apparatuses and thereby efficiently perform information acquisition processes. However, since communication apparatuses have many types of information, a type of apparatus information to be obtained from a communication apparatus may not always be common to other communication apparatuses.
Therefore, in an apparatus management system, different information acquisition processes need to be performed for different types of apparatus information of the same communication apparatus. Accordingly, a huge number of information acquisition processes need to be performed in an apparatus management system for managing a large number of communication apparatuses. This in turn increases the communication load and the processing time.
Thus, there is a demand for an apparatus management system that can manage a large number of communication apparatuses while reducing the communication load and the processing time.